________________________________________________________________OCCUPY IS ALIVE AND WELL IN BALTIMORE AND INDEED INVOLVED IN CONSOLIDATION WITH OTHER GROUPS. THE MOST IMPORTANT ACTION AT THIS POINT IS EDUCATION AS TO PEOPLE IN POWER AND POLICIES THAT HURT THE PEOPLE. THIS LACK OF INFORMATION ON OBAMA GAVE US YET ANOTHER CORPORATE POLITICIAN. THE COUNTRY FAILED TO SEE THE LEVEL OF CORRUPTION AND LIES ....WE WERE NAIVE AS A FIRST WORLD COUNTRY WOULD BE......THAT WE DIDN'T SEE THE BREAKDOWN OF OUR LEADERSHIP. NOW WE DO AND EVERYONE WILL KNOW HOW TO MAKE CHANGE.....THAT IS THE POWER OF OCCUPY THAT IS GROWING STRONG!

Local activists say Occupy Baltimore still working for change Events for national movement's one-year anniversary held across country By Kevin Rector, The Baltimore Sun 8:38 p.m. EDT, September 17, 2012Some are working to change the way development in Baltimore affects low-income residents. Others are using art to comment on social inequalities. Still others are battling home foreclosures in the city or gathering free books to hand out in poor neighborhoods.

There are no longer tents in McKeldin Square, but one year after the Occupy movement stormed the nation's consciousness and placed income inequality at the center of the country's political discourse, members of the Occupy Baltimore chapter said they are still working for change in local communities.

"Without the large numbers, you don't see us. We don't get the media we used to. But we're here, still fighting," said Beth Emmerling, a member of the group. "We miss the encampment and people don't know we're around, and yet in our own way, we continue to be active and effective."

As Occupy groups gathered for events across the nation Monday to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the movement — it began with an Occupy Wall Street protest in New York City on Sept. 17, 2011 — some Baltimore members planned art installations, including a North Baltimore studio show recapping the movement's highlights that will be held later this week after being canceled Monday night because of inclement weather.

The same group, an artists' collective and Occupy Baltimore offshoot called Greenpants, projected "99%" on the side of Baltimore's World Trade Center on Sunday, in a nod to the national movement's philosophy that the financial interests of the country's wealthiest 1 percent have taken priority over the interests of the rest of the population.

"Occupy Baltimore is more or less decentralized now, and there are many groups that are doing different kinds of work," said Olivia Robinson, a member of Greenpants. "But the network itself has gotten stronger. The interest and the passion that was brought to a head through the Occupy movement is not vanished. It's still here. It's deeper, in a way."

But Matthew Crenson, emeritus professor of political science at the Johns Hopkins University, said the group's fracturing into different offshoots may hurt the movement's long-term viability.

"The more they get absorbed into the sort of existing population of nonprofits, the less visible they become," Crenson said. "Their big impact is when they all come together and sort of declare their presence downtown, and maybe they get dispersed by police or some of them get arrested, but at least they've shown themselves. To the extent that they do other things, they diminish their presence."

Members acknowledge they have received less attention. And when they talk about their continuing efforts, they say, they sometimes get confused looks from people who think Occupy Baltimore was completely disbanded.

Despite fading from the limelight, however, Occupy Baltimore members still gather in McKeldin Square near the Inner Harbor once a week to share information about events. They participate in a larger monthly meeting of city nonprofits. They protested the city's spending tax dollars on the Baltimore Grand Prix last month and remain vocal in online forums about possible actions to take, including bank protests and book drives.

"We want to look to the future. What does Occupy look like?" Emmerling said.

More is planned for Occupy Baltimore's one-year anniversary Oct. 4, Emmerling said. There will likely be a rally in McKeldin Square, where activists first created a tent city last October to join in solidarity with similar encampments going up in cities across the country.

In those early days of the movement, the protesters held "general assembly" meetings to brainstorm ideas for social change, sleeping in tents for weeks on end and sharing resources communally. Members of the city's homeless population became staples at the encampment.

There were a few violent incidents, including one in which a woman was stabbed at the encampment during a dispute over a cat, according to police. And advocates for sexual assault victims at one point criticized protest leaders because of a perception they were encouraging the internal handling of assaults to avoid police involvement.

Yet unlike in other cities, where clashes between protesters and police led to violence, Occupy Baltimore presented the city with relatively little in the way of physical confrontation, even during a pre-dawn raid of the encampment by police in December. About 40 protesters sleeping in tents were awoken and told to leave, and the movement was officially evicted.

After the eviction, protesters vowed that their message would not fade into history. Individual members said they would pick issues they were most passionate about and continue to look for solutions to the inequalities they saw — in housing, banking, development, law enforcement and the justice system.

"Out of necessity, I think we needed to become more focused," Emmerling said. "We no longer had a communal space where we'd all come together to just think and talk."

Casey McKeel, who was a member of Occupy Baltimore's legal team, has recently focused her efforts on supporting the offshoot group Another BDC is Possible, which has fought to get the Baltimore Development Corp. — the city's quasi-public economic development arm — to become more transparent and offer more public benefits.

__________________________________________________________________________THE OCCUPY MOVEMENT ACROSS THE NATION IS ALIVE AND WELL. THE POWERS-THAT-BE ARE JUST TRYING TO KILL IT. AS YOU SEE BELOW THE WALL STREET OCCUPY IS FIGHTING AND WINNING THEIR RIGHTS TO PROTEST (SOUND STRANGE IN A FREE DEMOCRACY?) AND WE WILL SEE SISTER PROTESTS EVERYWHERE....HERE IN BALTIMORE NO DOUBT. SO PLAN TO CONTRIBUTE MONEY AND BODIES TO THE EVENT TO SEND A MESSAGE THAT WE WILL NOT LET THIS TAKEOVER OF OUR COUNTRY STAND! SADLY IT IS THE DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION TO WHICH WE MUST MARCH------VOTE FOR REAL PROGRESSIVES, NOT THIRD WAY DEMOCRATS NEXT ELECTIONS AT EVERY LEVEL OF GOVERNMENT!

IT'S ON! March on Wall Street South Wins Permits - Help Make It Happen!

On Tuesday, May 30, after 8 months, threats and preparation for legalaction, over two dozen attempted contacts and applications, and over1,500 emails, the City of Charlotte finally granted a march route forSunday, September 2 to the Coalition to March on Wall Street South<http://www.wallstsouth.org/>. This is huge victory! It's OUR victory!

Now we need your help to make this march something the banks andpoliticians will remember!

With less than 100 days to go, your donation is urgently needed<https://www.wepay.com/donations/104334>to ensure our ability to organize a broad and successful week ofaction that raises a people's agenda directly to the banks and theDemocratic Party.

No one is getting a salary to do this work. We don't have any majorfoundations or non-profits bank-rolling this effort. Your donationwill go directly to support the many costs associated with organizinga demonstration of this scale, including:

court costs and other legal costsmaking this the most accessible convention demonstration byproviding translation, interpretation and the needed equipment,accommodations for families, single parents, the elderly, and peoplewith disabilitiespuppets, signs, banners, and other artistic expressionsoutreach materials, staging, sound equipment and other costs

We need at least $10,000 to cover costs.

Our movements have always been supported by all of us comingtogether, digging deep, and giving what we can.

____________________________________________________________________________The G8 retreated from Chicago to avoid the world-wide attention that the G99 protestors would bring. Despite claiming to be “Democratic” these leaders’ secretive actions are anything but. They are occupying the secluded and highly protected Camp David, making decisions without input from the people. The demand for change is more crucial now than ever. The world is in one of the worst economic crises in memory. Our food, courtesy of Monsanto, is toxic. People are starving, we are on the precipice of war, and corporations control our own and emerging economies, energy sources, the rapid destruction of the climate and so much more. The members of the 1% summit can take steps to fix these problems immediately and the 99% asks them to do so.Occupy Baltimore will be in Thurmont for the G99. We will stand as witnesses to the present, reminders of the past and light the way into the future. We represent all of the people whose voices have been silenced. We offer the counter-narrative, the one written by the people. We will not disappear no matter how far these leaders run or how many obstacles they place in our way. We demand global justice and transparency. With peaceful, non-violent protests, Occupy Baltimore will occupy the G99 with our hearts, our bodies, and our most fervent desire for a better world.We will protest from 8 a.m. to sundown on Friday, March 18th and Saturday, March 19th. We invite all people to join usTo learn more about Occupy Baltimore’s activities in Thurmont visit: http://on.fb.me/Jqerov.To contact us via email: occbmore@gmail.comAdditional information about Occupying Thurmont can be found at: www.occupyg8thurmont.netContact us by email at occbmore@gmail.com Submitted by bemm on Wed, 05/09/2012 - 2:24pm Contact us by email at occbmore@gmail.comINDY READER SPRING PARTY: Fundraiser and Celebration for the Launch of our New Website and Release of our New Print Issue, "Occupy the Economy" Submitted by Stephen on Tue, 05/08/2012 - 6:33pm Baltimore's Indypendent Reader invites you to our Spring party! We have a lot to celebrate... the launch of our new website, indyreader.org, and the release of our latest print edition, "Occupy the Economy." We hope you celebrate with us and contribute to our fundraising drive, where we hope to raise $10,000 by the end of the summer. We have big dreams for the project . . . purchasing media-making equipment, providing financial support to journalists, printing papers, and more. All of this so that we can continue to bring you social justice-oriented and community-created news.